


Don't leave me here where I can't find you.

by gbbs



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:07:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gbbs/pseuds/gbbs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse into Grace's marriage and her memories of Tommy. A bit spoilerish if you haven't seen series two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?”

Marriage had broken her. Grace couldn’t explain how it happened. It was a slow process but one day she realized she had given more than she had. 

It was love that broke her, not violence. She could understand violence, but there was something alien about the way her husband loved her. Yet his love awaited for rewards, lurked inside rooms, inspected her. His love seized her up and down, asked her where she had been, took care of her. Grace smiled humourless at the thought: she could probably do a better job at everything he did, but she needn’t worry her head, wasn’t it nice? Oh no, Grace was supposed to look after the house and take care of herself. At first she wondered why he thought taking care of herself was such an ordeal, then she realized he meant providing for him what he wanted: a baby.

“Are you happy?” he would constantly ask. As time went on she felt obliged to agree. Sometimes she would try to find little things to tick him off, get on his nerves and perhaps manage to get a reaction but he would just look disapprovingly at her. Grace felt the kind of loneliness she could only remember feeling as a child: like her vocabulary wasn’t enough to communicate her feelings.

One day she found herself listening to the maid's advice and about to follow some silly superstition when it dawned on her that she was empty. It was no wonder she couldn’t carry life within her. Months passed and this knowledge wouldn’t leave her be.

When talk of a new doctor in London got to her and her husband she made up her mind: maybe going back would be the medicine she needed, as if she could go back to her older self. So she pleaded and got her way – “I bought the tickets, are you happy now, darling?”

She wrote Tommy. There was no logical explanation behind that. Tommy would never ask her if she was happy but she couldn’t tell if that was good or bad so she would tell him anyway. She said she missed him and wished him well. She missed Arthur, Finn and even John. The Garisson and singing. And although she didn’t write it down, she missed how he looked at her. Everything around them faded out. She was enough.

(She was a bit afraid to admit she missed her work. It seemed stupid of her to miss risking her life daily but she missed the sense of purpose it gave her).

She packed and left, her husband smiling at her and commenting on her home sickness like it was something sweet and harmless. She was ashamed of herself for not having a plan this time but her last one hadn’t served her that well. Grace was going to improvise her way through this.


	2. heaven did not seem to be my home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback: Grace going to America and meeting her husband.

Grace had been on the ship for three days when she noticed the man staring at her. She checked her purse for her gun and discretly started to follow him around. He was alone and barely talked to anyone else – much like her. By the end of day five she was tired of it and decided to stare back. If he was sent by Campbell to get her, waiting around wouldn’t change anything. Surprisingly, he smiled at her. She felt herself shake as he sat next to her.

“I noticed you from day one. I travel quite often but seeing such a lady like you all alone is rare.”

“I can look after myself”, Grace answered realizing it was the first time in days she talked to someone other than waiters.

“Oh, I believe you” the man answered with a smile. “I only want the pleasure of your company if that’s not too much to ask”.

Grace watched him intently, searching for some kind of sign. Was he trying to fool her? The best way to find out was to politely decline his invitation – if she had learnt something, it was that the true character of a man is the one he shows when a woman tells him no.

“Well, my name is William Linton. If you change your mind, just look for me. Thank you for your time”. And with that he was gone.

And with that, Grace was alone again.

*****

 

They met again. He was a banker and had business to attend in London from time to time. He enjoyed reading, played the piano and spoke french very well. They danced and drank, discussed books and politics and soon enough Grace felt she had a friend in him. He noticed she was always looking over her shoulders and told her he would keep an eye on her as it was “really dangerous for a lady to be alone like that”. She told him her plans – she had some connections in New York and was hoping to get a job and find herself a place to live. He promised to help her in anyway he could. 

By the time they arrived he had tried to ask her about her family. “They’re dead. I have an aunt and some distant cousins but that’s it”. He tried to find out her reasons for leaving. “There’s nothing left for me in England. I heard America is the place to start anew and decided to come”. She gave him few answers but shared her thoughts so freely with him he couldn’t help but feel like he knew her well. When he told her that she smiled faintly. He wondered if she was happy. Grace was quiet most of the time and would from time to time spend long periods of time without talking. He found himself wishing he could make her happy. That he didn’t tell her.

When they got to New York he made sure to leave her with her friends and get her address and a promise that she would call him.

*****

 

He proposed to her six months after they met. She seemed a little shocked by the his offer.

“Will, I have no family you know of. I’m sure yours wouldn’t approve of that.”

“Do I look like a man who cares about that sort of thing, Grace? I can make my own life choices and so can you. I choose you. Will you choose me?”

Grace fell silent, bitterness swelling inside of her. Here was a man offering her eveything Tommy wouldn’t. A man that had made himself in a new land. A man that, like her, had no close family, no ties. Could she make this new land a new home for herself? Could she love Will? 

She knew wasn’t in love with him. He was kind to her, he was smart, he was more than she could have hoped for. 

Grace longed to go back to England. Sometimes she had terrible nightmares – Campbell threatening her, calling her a whore. Her father screaming, dissapointed, echoing Campbell. But the worst nightmares involved Tommy.

She kept dreaming she was older, married with children and going back to England for the first time in years. She would bump into one of the Shelby’s and they would tell her Tommy had died a few years ago. Grace couldn’t shake the effect this dream had on her – suddenly she felt terribly alone in the universe. But Tommy had left her for his family and it was selfish of him to no longer exist while she had to face the world. She trusted him to do this one little thing for her, this one wish she muttered under her breath like a prayer: just stay alive, Tommy, just as long as I am.

William was never in her dreams. He was nice and real. He was, Grace had to admit, more than she deserved. So she said yes.


	3. Haunt me, then.

Part I 

Grace had been happy in her marriage, as happy as she could manage. Learning how to mantain a big house and throw dinner parties had been exciting and safe as well as making connections for her husband and charming people – she had a great intuition about what people wanted – was fun and exciting. The man who was her first boss in America, before her marriage – a sweet old man who owned an accounting office in New York and hired her a secretary but ended up teaching her a lot of his own job so that she could review his math – became a dear friend to her and woud often visit her. People had been kind to Grace and she knew it. She enjoyed it.

Dissatisfaction was a little seed that kept growing inside her until it was deeply rooted. It began when Tommy refused to leave with her. Then when she realized she missed being challenged. She missed rising to ocasions and learning about herself in the process. And dissatisfaction came fully alive when she came to the conclusion she would never be the mother of Will’s children – this one mission she thought to be the ultimate one: making sure her child wouls have everything she craved for herself - love, safety, the best education money could buy, sucess. 

She just knew it in her bones. She knew all the doctors in the world couldn’t fix it. The Burgess family had never had any issues with fertility. The Linton women, on the other hand, were plagued by it generation after generation, she quickly found out through gossip. No doctor would dare suggest her husband was at fault, so Grace took the blame. She did feel guilty – guilty that she wasn’t really happy, guilty that she couldn’t bring herself to tell this man the truth, that she would let herself be in a vulnerable position once again.

And guilty of missing Thomas Shelby.

Part II

She rejoiced being in England again. She wouldn’t allow herself to hope for more than that, for more than being home again. 

So when the phone rang she tried to tell herself that maybe it was nothing. And she would have convinced herself of it if weren’t for the man watching her come and go, from the hotel intently, a peaky blinder she was sure. When the phone rang again she answered. 

And they met and she was truly home. 

 

Tommy pretended he didn’t care but she could feel it in his stare. She couldn’t protest as she was jealous as well. Jealous, angry, bitter. Could they meet again? 

 

“I want to feel alive”. Jealous, angry, bitter. Both of them. Grace wanted to leave. She was risking everything again and what for? Tommy would never provide for their child what Grace dreamed of. She was being reckless. 

Except for the fact that she knew deep inside he would. No one would be a fiercer parent and together they could do it. Tommy might have found someone else – so unlike her she wondered if he did it on purpose – but he would only bet on a winning horse and she was it. She was giving him a future and hoping he would give her the present in return. So she waited a little longer.


End file.
